Southbury Native Wounded In Colorado 'Batman' Shooting

Friend, Also From Southbury, Uninjured

A 22-year-old Southbury native was among the 58 people injured early Friday when a gunman opened fire during a screening of the latest Batman movie.

Stephen A. Barton gave the student address at his May graduation from Syracuse University before biking across the country with his friend Ethan Rodriguez-Torrent, both graduates of Pomperaug High School in Southbury. When they reached the Denver area, they decided to attend the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" at Century 16 Theater in Aurora, a Denver suburb.

In a hospital-bed interview with Fox 31 in Denver, Barton described seeing a gas canister fly across the screen just a few minutes into the movie before a chaotic scene unfolded, and then gunfire rang out.

"At that time, I thought it was still fireworks," he said.

Then he realized he was shot in the neck.

"People started screaming. There was a lot of chaos, so I ducked down with my friends who I was there with," Bartonsaid Friday at the Medical Center of Aurora. His friend, Rodriguez-Torrent, a student at Yale University, was not hurt and was at Barton's bedside during the Fox 31 interview.

When the two men made their way out of the theater, emergency responders had already arrived, Barton told Fox 31. Barton said he spoke with a police officer who transported him to the hospital.

Barton was rushed into surgery Friday and is expected to recover. He had surgery to remove the pellets and was in high spirits afterward, his brother, David Barton, said in an interview with The Post-Standard. "He's feeling great."

An international relations, economics and Russian language major, Barton plans to teach English in Russia this fall, his college academic adviser, Francine D'Amico, told The Post-Standard.

His mother, Christine Barton, of Patriot Road in Southbury, traveled to Colorado where she was by his side Friday.

At least twelve people were killed and 58 were injured in the attack. A suspect, James Eagen Holmes, 24, a doctoral student at the University of Colorado-Denver, is in custody. He stalked through the smoke-filled theater firing a semi-automatic rifle, a shotgun and a pistol, police said.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has ordered flags in Connecticut to fly at half-staff until sunset July 25 to honor the victims.